The Lost Princess
by SP1CYSTR4WB3RRY
Summary: Non-Massacre. A strange 'red headed' girl with Hyuuga eyes found outside of Konoha holds the key to every question Konoha has since the start of the war with Cloud 15 years ago. An unknown race against time forces Itachi to do the impossible, even for him. He must find the door that the lost Hyuuga Princess guards.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. Please support the official release.**

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As Bird was rushing home from his latest mission, sweat fusing his skin and mask together, he sensed something to be amiss within his surroundings. "Tch," he hissed, his wish of everything running smoothly until he and his team could finally return to Konoha. He signaled the three other shinobi to stop running through the trees.

"Nezumi, what do you hear?" Bird asked, waiting for Mouse to complete the given task with the use of his kikaichu colony. Mouse reached out, receiving the information the kikaichu collected. "There is a weak chakra signature that is present here, slightly stronger about a kilometer north-west of here, and the signature is stationary. My guess, someone ran through here not too long ago and given how sporadic and uneven the residual chakra signature is, the person of interest is hurt or weak. The information from my friends could not determine whether or not this unknown entity is a ninja or not."

"Tori-Senchou, this seems strange. Just because it appears weak does not necessarily make it so, especially since Nezumi can't sense it right. It could be a trap," muttered Horse lazily. Bird seemed to ponder that idea. _A kilometer north-west…that is too close to Konoha for my liking. Maybe he is right and it is a trap… _"Uma-"

"Well, we will never know until we check it out, right? So let's go see for ourselves if it is a trap. And would it be a trap for this ANBU team anyway?" Snake asks with an arrogant tone in his voice, practically seeing the cocky grin that is hiding behind his mask. The rest of the team sighs as Snake runs towards the area Mouse designated.

"Tch, why doesn't that stupid Hebi ever listen? And why did he have to be put into my squad…" Bird mutters as the rest of the ANBU team goes and follows Snake.

The ANBU team ran towards the chakra signature. _Strange, this chakra…it…it almost seems familiar…foreign yet familiar…what…who could it be…_thought Bird. Once the team was about thirty meters away from the target, it reacted as if it sensed them, running away as fast as it possibly can (which it was _not _fast at all, particularly when compared to Bird's superior ANBU team thankyouverymuch), and when the stranger ran about ten meters from its original location, the chakra signature was suddenly suspended into the air, staying that way.

Once the team finally reached the signature, they realized why it was suspended, whatever it was – the net of a poacher's trap was hanging within the trees, and the first thought that came to Bird's mind was how poaching, especially so close to Konoha's walls was illegal. His second thought was the internal musings of a young genius trying to decipher what, _who_ could possibly be in the net. From the trap, there was something that spilled out from the bottom of the net…something that looked a lot like blood.

The ANBU team split up around the trap in order to gather information: Horse noted that the thing that looked like blood was just in fact hair, the color a little _too _blood red. Mouse confirms that this is the chakra signature that he felt earlier, and finally discerns that if this person was not in fact a ninja (and wondering why his kikaichu had such a problem in figuring that out. Could the buzz from their high caused by the extreme chakra intake _really _affect their present sensing capabilities? He must study this puzzling thought), that there was a lot of raw potential that if trained, could make a powerful ally or a formidable foe. Bird activated his Byakugan, making note of the chakra coils, agreeing with Mouse. Bird also notices large, strong chakra coils around the eyes, deducing that this being has a doujutsu kekki genkai, one that has similar coils as the Byakugan. Snake notes that the being is indeed a female that is in serious need of immediate medical attention. As Mouse and Horse start to undo the net, Snake started to reach for the face of the young woman trapped in the net he found through the leaves, trying to see if he can obtain consciousness from the girl.

Right as Snake's fingers are about to touch the being's face, a pair of white eyes flash open, startling Snake enough to take a step back, a puzzled look on his face to match his stance. "Who…wha…?" he mutters questioningly. "Senchou, come look at this here."

Bird walks towards Snake, wondering what could surprise such a ninja as Snake.

"I swear Hebi, if this isn't as strange as you made it out to be, I think an early appointment for Ibiki is definitely in your future."

"Well then I guess I will never need to see Ibiki ever again, because this is plenty strange for you Senchou."

Snake moved out of the way once Bird appeared behind him, the rest of the team gathering around as well. Despite the thick humidity of the surrounding forest, Bird suddenly felt cold, chills continuously running up and down his spine. He noticed the slightly gaunt looking face, the dark circles marring her pale skin, but what he most definitely noticed was staring right back at him.

Eyes.

_White_ eyes.

"Do you think she is a Hyuuga, Tori-Senchou?" Mouse inquired.

"Are you kidding? Who has ever heard of a red headed Hyuuga before?" Snake stated. Bird could not figure out if Snake was being sarcastic or not from the tome of his voice, but Bird did secretly agree with Snake. Red hair on a Hyuuga is kind of unthinkable, and just downright weird and creepy. But on her…it was not _too _bad.

"Are you trying to be funny or are you just stupid?" Horse queried. "Anyway, there is a chance that these eyes were stolen from a Hyuuga. Do you know of any main branch Hyuugas that went missing or were killed during missions, Tori-Senchou? Any with their eyes removed?" Horse asked in an interrogating manner.

_Stolen eyes?! Yes, stolen eyes make the most sense in this case. Who would dare steal eyes from a Hyuuga…well, there is always Cloud, with whom we are at war with since the incident…what, fourteen…almost fifteen years ago-_

Bird's own white eyes widened at the thought. _Could it be, could it possibly be…her?_

Bird did not realize that he spoke aloud.

"Who could it be? Who is 'her'?" Horse questioned intensely, noting the severity of the situation (between the girl – Hyuuga or not – needing medical attention and speaking of possible sensitive information in technically 'enemy' territory).

"…Hinata…sama…?"

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A/N: i really do NOT need to start a new story right now, but this one has been playing in my head for a while (although the original idea was totally different, but it was still hinacentered and itahina with some nejihina) while I was writing the outline, the ideas were not correctly communicating with the Word Document, and I wanted to start writing it to help with that and to see how my writing has changed (it was beyond atrocious when I was younger. Gomen) I want to write a little more of the outline, so **this is not going to be updated on a weekly basis or anything**. But I thought I would test the waters with this idea for now (against my better judgement. Since I will not be on top of this all the time, there is a fantastic chance for plagiarism.) Plus I am going into my sophomore year of college so I will have no time to write come September. :c

**I am trying my knack at Naruto**^^ **this is my first Naruto story X3 **hopefully I can work through it well, as do not watch/read it much. Ah well, it just means more research for me, which is honestly half the fun XD. (Speaking of my "research," -which I didn't do thankyouverymuch- I do not know if there are many different animal masks in ANBU aside from the standard cat one, but I DO know Itachi was a weasel -pffft- so I will just go along with that process. Any ANBU of the Konoha twelve will either be ironic or fits in with their actual personality.

**If there are any factual mistakes** (like if I made Sasuke's favorite food chocolate cake where in fact he hates sweets) **do not hesitate to let me know. **

**But if it is something about characters being OOC, that is really just part of the story, and I can't make them any more IC, because it will disrupt the flow. Plus, this story takes on many key points in Naruto as they do not exist. Many of these events shape how the characters are. If these events do not happen, then the ripple effect of other factors and events that stemmed from that do not exist either.**

**I am presently playing around with the title/summary, so forgive any sudden changes in either.**

**Please Review. Critiques welcomed, flames are not. Thank you/ Debbie**


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. Please support the official release.

Disclaimer: There is some Latin use in this chapter. As i have taken a year of Latin I tried my best with it but i did _not_ learn a good majority of these words, so I resorted to Google Translate. Any inaccuracies with the Latin, I apologize for.

**Also, this chapter gets a bit dark in a psychological/self harm-y type of way. Here is a warning for the "faint of heart"**

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Through her training with Tsunade, Sakura had thought she was prepared for anything. That was until last night when an ANBU team brought in an unknown girl, telling both Sakura and Tsunade of the crazy deduction that they have come up with – that this girl, this strange looking red headed girl with odd markings all over her body, may be the lost Hyuuga heiress. Sakura just could not believe what they were saying. How could the dead come back to life?

Since Hinata Hyuuga was never _officially _confirmed dead, Tsunade and Sakura have to treat this possibility of truth with as much care as possible, and proceeded for the next ten hours of treatment. First, after changing the girl from the strange red dress she wore into a hospital gown, a visual checkup was administered, where small scrapes and cuts and bruises were healed quickly. Then blood was taken for the necessary blood tests that need to be analyzed. Tsunade made note of the strange markings covering the mystery girl's body had no known origins or meanings. After Tsunade cast a chakra subjugation technique to place the girl in an induced coma, they proceeded to give her a chemical shower as is standard in shinobi hospitals (those darn enemy villages), and in case the markings could have other detrimental effects. The shower did seem to remove the markings, at least superficially. Then Tsunade and Sakura continued to work on the girl, searching for broken bones and other maladies that could potentially be life threatening.

Sakura thought she saw something strange on the other side of the girl's neck, and instead of just asking Tsunade to check it out (since Tsunade was on that side of the body, just further down), she decided that she should go ahead and check on her own, moving her hand around the neck in an almost choking fashion.

The possible Hyuuga's eyes shot open, and instead of a pearlescent white, Sakura and Tsunade were exposed to a glowing red. The girl sat up so quickly that the two trained kunoichi in the room could not follow the movement with their eyes.

"Come on Sakura, restrain her!"

"I am _trying_ Tsunade-sama, but she won't budge!" Sakura said in a strained voice. The response that both of the medical nins heard was an awful scream. The scream curdled their blood, wrenched their guts, and nearly broke the glass of the machines and windows.

Sakura broke through the painful haze of the screaming when she was slapped in the face by the flailing patient and grabbed one of her upper arms. She used her super strength, one hand on the upper arm and the other on the shoulder, and with a grunt she pushed down with all her might. The girl moves her arm, breaking it in the process. Sakura lets go of the girl's broken arm, frightened and sickened at the sight of it.

"_Diabolus animam frui manducans." _The girl states in a voice that does not appear to be her own, much too masculine and echoed to be the voice of a young girl. In the haze of hearing the seemingly possessed girl speak for the first time in a strange language, neither medic realized that the girl started to bite at Tsunade until teeth met flesh, forcing Tsunade to let go as well. Once the girl was free from her restraints, she jumped out of the hospital bed and runs out of the room. Once out of the room, she notices that her markings are gone.

"_Abiit! Nihil! Ubi fuerint?"_ She continued to repeat that last remark softly, looking around her body and the hospital waiting room, with an almost whine in her voice, akin to a child who lost their favorite toy. She walks down the hallway, turns her head to face another hospital corridor, and sees a nurse filling out a chart. She runs to the nurse to rip the pen out of the now scared nurse's hand and tries to redraw the markings into her skin.

"_Hoc colorem! Non orportet! Necesse rubeum. Sanguine. Sanguine."_ She mutters as she pushes the blue inked pen harder and harder into her skin until the outer layers of skin are rubbed raw and start to crack and lightly bleed. The other nurses surrounding her try to restrain her and stop her from harming herself, but the mystery girl continued to lash out and attack anyone who tries to stop her with slapping and biting.

Neji clicked his tongue at the sight of the entourage that joined him in his quest to the hospital to find out if the girl he found (well, _his _ANBU team, anyway) was really the lost Hyuuga heiress. Sasuke wanted to come along since he did find her (plus he could not get the thought of those eyes shooting open out of his head no matter what he tried to do) and the girl being the Hyuuga they think she is affects him as well (with his –arranged- engagement to the present heiress, Hanabi). Neji could hardly fault Sasuke for being curious, as secretive as this matter is (the Hyuuga was not notified immediately, since Neji wanted the test results first _bad boy, _Neji). Naruto wanted to join the party of two since he was going to visit the hospital anyway – to bother Sakura and Tsunade. And strangely enough, Itachi joined the group as well, stating that he wanted to _come along for the ride_ with his brother. Did Itachi not realize the severity of whatever outcome there may be? Or was this just his attempt at a poorly timed joke? Neji broke out of his reverie with the loud commotion occurring in the waiting room, grabbing the attention of all four shinobi, holding it steadfast.

The girl is aggressively speaking in unknown language and violently drawing some sort of marking throughout her body, pressing so hard that her hands and numerous parts of her body were covered in blood, and she is not stopping. What perturbed the shinobi the most is that she was able to harm herself without any intervention from the observing staff.

Neji was the first of the four to grab his bearings, and made his way towards his possible cousin, horrified at the sight of what she was doing with no one helping her. He started to step forward, but the nearest nurse stopped him, explaining that anyone that goes near her gets attacked, forcing no intervention.

"I do not care!" Neji yells, pushing past the nurse. He manages to grab the hand holding the pen, but she screams in his face and manages to hit him wherever she can reach with her other hand. She starts to move her head to bite the hand restraining her, but with a quick reflex, Neji is able to shield the union of limbs with his other arm, to which she proceeds to bite. While he is focused on the pain, the girl breaks her wrist and releases her arm from the hold, shocking everyone in the room.

Before she can react, Itachi came in and grabbed her upper arms. The girl continued to scream in his face some more, but he shakes her, forcing her head, her _eyes,_ to face his own red ones, imposing sleep on the girl with his spinning tomoe. Itachi picks her up bridal style, navigating through the still shell shocked people and carrying her to her room after finding out from a nurse. Tsunade proceeds to heal the broken arm and wrist and manages to remove the pen markings and close the cuts.

"Hyuuga or not, because of what just happened, I have to put her under a seventy-two hour psychiatric evaluation," Tsunade stated to a reluctant Neji, who nodded his response. He started to feel conflicted on whether or not he actually wanted the mystery girl to be a Hyuuga, based on her actions. He could not believe that this young woman stemmed from the little girl that he liked and felt protective over, that braided flowers in his hair, was his only friend. Neji is not sure what would be better: that this girl is Hinata Hyuuga or that Hinata Hyuuga is in fact dead. If her being alive meant that she was this mystery girl, than what could be worse? There is obviously some kind of trauma, something that made her like this and he cannot bear to think that his cute little Hinata-sama went through such a thing.

The next morning, the mystery girl woke up to an internal sound she hears and wakes up to almost every day: the devil's sweet siren call. As she opens her eyes slowly, she does not find the familiar browns and greys, but the stark, cold, medicinal white that burn the irises. When she opens her eyes further, she finds herself in a padded room with something attached to both wrists and ankles. The slight pressure of the attachments on her sensitive appendages trigger painful memories of the darkest time of her life.

She was no longer the eighteen year old woman who was meant for greatness, the greatest honor of all time…

She gasped for air as she tried to make sense of the situation, the stress caused by the terrifying onslaught of memories.

…she was once again a three year old whom was kidnapped, taken from her mother's arms, her father's guidance, her clan's teachings.

The deafening silence of the padded room was too much on the stressed out girl.

She screamed.

She screamed and screamed until her throat was getting hoarse and raw. And even then she screamed some more.

Her screaming caught the attention of an orderly passing by (irritable for one reason or another, even he did not know for sure, just that he was extremely annoyed and any little disturbance in his fragile emotions – like incessant screaming – would teeter him off the edge), who bangs on the door to her padded room, yelling at the poor screaming girl to shut up.

The girl gets startled by the loud banging and the yelling, causing her to huddle into the corner of the room, cowering in fear. Most of her screams had turned into sobs and had considerably quieted down, but the orderly did not appreciate her efforts and continues to bang on the door and yell at her, causing some screams to return, the girl trying to push herself further into the corner and grasping her head in a protective manner.

The irritated orderly huffs and is fed up with the constant noise, creating a headache that he does not need. The orderly goes into the girls' room.

"You want to scream, huh? Oh I will give you something to scream about," he states darkly, deciding to beat her around for a bit and then tranquilize her to silence her. Who would believe her anyway, if she were to report him? She is in a psych evaluation and was tranquilized. _Will be anyway, with ketamine,_ he thinks, smirking to himself at his cleverness, since ketamine is a hallucinogen.

Once the door closes, all anyone from the outside could hear are the frightened screams of a girl, followed by the painful screams of a man. Both sets of screams are present until the girl's is all that remains.

And a splattering of blood on the bullet proof glass panel is all that can be seen in contrast against the stark white.

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Diabolus animam frui manducans.: The devil will enjoy eating your soul

Abiit! Nihil! Ubi fuerint?: Gone! No! Where did they go?

Hoc colorem! Non orportet! Necesse rubeum. Sanguine. Sanguine.: Wrong color! Not right! Need red. Blood. Blood.

Oh, and I _really_ do NOT like Sakura. I think that is a little obvious, what with how I make her kinda sorta really useless. c:

Please review.


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